


Audience of One

by garnettrees



Series: I Set My Clocks Early ('Cause I Know I'm Always Late) [2]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angry Erik, Astral Projection, Brotherhood of Mutants, Canon Jewish Character, Central Intelligence Agency, Charles Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Charles Being Concerned, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Child Abuse, Dimension Travel, Doppelganger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Erik, Erik Does Not Share Well, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Erik has Issues, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, For Science!, Friendship, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Imprisonment, M/M, Magneto's Terrible Fashion Sense, Mindfuck, Multiple Timelines, Multiverse, Mutant Powers, Mutant Rights, Non-Consensual Drug Use, None Of This Is Hank's Fault, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pseudoscience, Quantum Mirror, Solitary Confinement, Soul Bond, X-Men: Days of Future Past References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-10 06:16:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3279851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garnettrees/pseuds/garnettrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik Lehnsherr will spend ten years as the CIA's only living mutant prisoner, isolated deep below the Pentagon. Which is not to say nothing happens in that decade. Choices not yet made are echoing backwards, and Erik's touchstone will always be Charles.<br/>In any lifetime.</p><p>  <i>(Or:  the one where Erik manages to travel in space and time without ever actually leaving the CIA's dubious clutches, and bb!Charles is way too adorable for anyone's good.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Imprisonment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days, I'm gonna learn to stop adding stories _before_ my head ends up as swiss cheese. In my defense, this is actually a companion to 'Forget the Present Tense'-- not a sequel, but something that occurs roughly in tandem. I think they may end up dovetailing. ... Maybe. (Do I look like I'm in charge? I didn't think so. ^_~)
> 
> I'm still a little nervous about this, but I can't resist: a) ten years is a long-ass time to be stuck in a cement bunker, and b) I am fascinated with the possible ramifications of altering timelines. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to read this! If I could trouble you a bit more to comment or kudo, I'd really be quite grateful.
> 
>  **TW** : for non-specific Holocaust references, fictional interspecies violence on par with DoFP, and the fact those ten years with the CIA could not have been fun.

_I looked up and saw you_  
_I know that you saw me_  
_We froze but for a moment_  
_In empathy_  
_[..] We ran away_  
_But what are we running from?_  
_A show of hands who knows in this audience of one_  
_Where have they gone?_  
-"Audience of One" by Rise Against

 

 

 

Erik Lehnsherr has no doubt that, when the CIA and their military collaborators stuck him in this geometrical cement grave, his captors thought they would break him without any atypical expenditure of effort. 

In this same way, Erik is also certain that they will never succeed. 

 

This assurance is as concrete as the walls that imprison him, and it does not stem from arrogance. Lehnsherr has that flaw in abundance, of course; he and Charles are joined in many of their weaknesses as well as their strengths. Still, even he has a breaking point. Everyone does. The obligation of a prisoner is not to last forever, but merely to outlast the jailers themselves. Then you die

_(or are used for ransom_  
'Move the coin, or--'  
Oh, but Herr Shamyir, you are dead. So just shut up and stay dead.)

for lack of usefulness, or you find some way to escape.

 

Doubtless the CIA considers itself well-equipped with experts in physical torture and mental agony. Connoisseurs, gourmands of sentient suffering, picking through the broken shells of victims as if selecting succulents for a feast. Lehnsherr will give them their due; they beat him, drug him, deprive him of food and sleep. They show him pictures of dead compatriots (Angel, Azazel and, much later, poor Sean), threatening to uncover and destroy anyone else he cares about. They can't use electroshock-- too risky, conductors are often magnetic as well-- but there's always water-boarding and the ever-popular application of cigarettes. (Schmidt was particularly fond of that one, too.) There are plenty of non-fatal ways to severely injure a person; they break bones (unlike Schmidt, they are not smart-- or depraved-- enough to deliberately set them wrong), cut into him with ceramic knives, and yank a couple of back molars. 

Once, they let a group of sailors who claim to have been at the Cuban stand-off treat him to a 'soap party', which turns out to be a beating using hard bars of soap stuffed into pillow-cases. Erik doesn't believe for one moment that anyone from the battleships actually has the security clearance to get down here, but it's a good story. All part of the mind-games-- and the men certainly brutalized him like it was personal. He peed blood for a week. That was back when he still had a rough grasp on time, which is yet another psychological tactic. They won't turn off the damned fluorescents either, trying to batter his circadian rhythm. Schmidt-- that which became Shaw-- loved to go on about that one, for it was the subtleties he liked. He'd lectured Erik a great deal about the effects of sleeplessness and starvation on the brain. All, of course, whilst eating a hearty meal in front of the boy. Without proteins or lipids in the diet, the body begins a process of self-cannibalism-- first fat, then muscle. Or more bluntly, Klaus Schmidt once offered in an elaborately pedantic mood, the brain and then the heart. Erik is blearily reacquainted with these unpleasant details while the CIA withholds food, but they don't apply this tactic in any way as long as they could. 

They just don't have Shaw's stamina.

 

The point is, in the grand scheme of things, they're amateurs . They've also picked the worst person in the world with whom to use torture as a means of extracting information. The grotesquely ironic part is that Erik doesn't _have_ that much to reveal. At least, not in the way the supposed intelligence agency thinks. He and Mystique had worked hard, but they'd barely had a chance to lay the foundations for the Brotherhood before that dark day in Dallas. There's no great mutant conspiracy in play-- yet. And, while Erik _is_ guarding a treasured weakness in the gaping maw he calls a heart, he knows full well that he is just as much a threat to Charles Xavier as the CIA will ever be.

His beautiful, obstinate and infuriating Patroclus-- Erik's own dear Achilles' heel. If these filthy insects, these simpering _humans_ in their fine suits and uniforms should bring Charles in and torture the younger mutant in turn… Well, Lehnsherr doesn't give himself the credit to think he'd gracefully surrender before the professor was hurt at all. He would hold out, for a little while, and Charles would learn to plumb further depths of hatred for his former friend and lover.

_'Then again,'_ comes a chill, stone-epitaph whisper, _'perhaps you are as weak as all that. Look at what you've done-- just **look** at what you've already done to him. Could you stand to be the author of more, even by proxy? As long as he draws breath, he is your beating heart. He makes you weak.'_

And whose voice is that-- the _shamyir_ Shaw, or Lehnsherr's own relentless darkness at the reigns? If Charles were the only thing that stood between mutants and true freedom, could Erik…?

He chokes that thought off relentlessly. 

He has a duty to his people, but any hypothetical sacrifices he might or might not make are hardly germane as long as he's stuck in here.

 

At first, he thinks Mystique might yet engineer his escape but, by the time they show him pictures of Emma's _dissection_ , Erik knows the likelihood had dwindled exponentially. Furthermore, he'd trained the girl once called Raven far, far too well. 'The Cause' above all individual considerations, above personal gain. Surely she must know what a hypocrite he is? But no-- for all the rebellious break from her 'brother', she is still very young. Naive, malleable, and desperate to be loved. Yet not so desperate that she's completely deluded herself-- for had she not once come to him wearing Charles' face, every inch cloying and vindictive innocence? He has bedded her, but he certainly didn't do it then. That night, he'd nearly killed her, and she'd gotten more practical training saving her own life than he'd been able to teach in a year's worth of sparring. 

No, he'll expect no help from that quarter. Mystique is truly free now-- beholden only to herself, her demons, and her ideals. It's for the best that _someone_ remain on the outside to keep fighting, since it's become clear that Moira and the 'paranormal' division of the CIA were third-tier patsies. There's a lot of that going around. No wonder they'd been so quick to cut bait on the beach-- he'd marked the blasted woman as a potential mole, but she'd been disposable all along. There is some _other_ group-- some core group of humans in the shadowy star-chambers of power-- that is fully aware of mutantkind, and they are powerful enough to assassinate the leader of a nominally democratic country. Lehnsherr has never been impressed by Charles' adopted homeland. He has little faith in any man-made structure and, while there must be some bulwark to hold back anarchy, it will years before mutants have a chance to attempt their own. 

_'Which is why I-- **we** \-- will need him,'_ Lehnsherr concedes internally. He does what he was made (or remade) to do: he destroys, and he does it well. Charles is the builder and the dreamer, attributes Erik is fairly certain can never be taught. Most assuredly not by someone who isn't capable of doing either of those things themselves. Any reasons Erik himself might need Charles are far more personal, grudging, and nigh-on impossible to admit. 

 

In the early days of his captivity, he tries not to think about Charles, in case the 'zookeepers' have a telepath of their own. It rapidly becomes obvious that, a) he is the only living mutant in captivity and, b) that said humans are not smart enough to hide that fact. This comes as a relief, because _not_ thinking about Charles is embarrassingly difficult, something which has nothing to do with Erik's present situation. He couldn't banish the dear professor from his thoughts in the outside world, either. In the year since they'd parted, Erik missed Xavier with an acidic ferocity he had not imagined possible. It was a pain Erik could live with, but he is well aware that the body could also continue functioning despite the loss of an eye, a kidney, or--

_(when i die, i will be damned for many things but, oh. oh, charles, your legs…)_

a limb.

 

In the outside world, at least, he'd been able to stay busy. He's always considered that a particularly useless piece of advice for mourners-- the sort of 'stiff upper lip' attitude he'd encountered in England and among the social elite in general. As if suffering were somehow déclassé. Of course, its hardly likely that any of those shallow and glittering puppets would even know suffering if it stabbed them in the heart. Lehnsherr is well aware that there is no cure for that destruction-- _shavar_ , in the Hebrew, which sounds less trite-- save death. But what was taken in blood will be paid in blood and, while he may have left the 'G-d' part behind, Erik's personal theology is still firmly rooted in the wrath, thunder and punishment of Sinai. 

Had he been mourning Charles as if he'd buried that beloved form on the beach, instead of just maiming it? Yes-- had been, and still is. During their brief collaboration, Frost once told him he had the most relentlessly sane mind she'd ever encountered. It wasn't a compliment.

"So sane, sugar," she'd drawled, eyeing Magneto's newly refurbished helmet, "that it makes you a fucking _lunatic_."

Charles' descriptions of the metal-bender's psyche had always been kinder, but Erik refuses to attach any special significance to that. Xavier is, no doubt, more critical of his friend's mind now-- for hasn't the thing called Magneto now proven himself to be every inch the monster Shaw created?

 

For a brief time, Erik thinks his professor might find him here, in this unfilled grave. Not physically of course, but he'd taken some sort of mental visitation almost as a guarantee. He'd been disarmed in Dallas; no helmet after a year of strict barricades against all telepathic interference. Surely that was enough time for Hank to recreate (and no doubt vastly improve) Cerebro, particularly if he had Charles to collaborate with. Moreover, Erik suspects Xavier might not need any amplification to link _their_ minds, specifically. He'd told himself it was a strategic concern, that he certainly wasn't possessive over something that might have developed without his consent, but he'd never actually allowed Frost to check. The mere suggestion-- after a great deal of bluster and affront-- had forced Emma to admit that Charles was far stronger and more deft than she. Acting as though such a bond would be foreign is what Sean or Alex would have called a 'cop-out'. Erik told that gentle, fascinating young man in no uncertain terms to stay out of his head. And then proceeded to engage in a physical and-- non-existent G-d help him-- emotional intimacy more profound than anything he had ever experienced, or ever expects to know again. Charles has laid his mark upon him, a brand Erik had accepted in a moment of surrender and triumphant possession as honest as it was ill-advised. He can never doubt that some vestige of that warmth-and-silver-fur touch remains with him, for there is a small section of his mind that is always cold now. Cold beyond the hope of salvaged skin; cold to a blunting sense that negates having ever felt anything at all.

Erik hates Charles a little for that, though he supposes he will always love the professor to an equal or greater degree. Hate, he is discovering, is a consumptive but ultimately easy thing. Love, on the other hand…  
Well.

 

Charles has never come to him. Not the slightest brush of presence, not the least bit of stirring in the blackness Lehnsherr calls dreams. After his capture (they actually have the affront to call it an 'arrest', which makes Erik openly scoff) he was actually able to keep a good handle on time despite his isolation. He would slice little cuts on the insides of his left thigh with his thumbnail. After seven of these, he would make a cut on the right thigh, letting the original marks fade as he moved down the line of skin. Days into weeks.

They'd brought in an analyst, who called down to him from the safety of the glass-roofed enclosure like someone pitching their voice down to hear the echo from a well. She'd been very interested in his 'self-injury', prying at him with what she probably thought of as clinical precision. She might as well have been groping in the dark. It was all so phenomenally simple that he had, in fact, laughed at her. With nothing resembling a sharp edge to scratch on the wall, he was simply making use of the resources that _were_ at hand. At any rate, she hadn't lasted long-- her presence must have been the CIA's off-handed attempt at a honey trap. A pretty, professional woman not unlike Moira, with big sympathetic eyes and a willing ear for any tirades the criminal Magneto might have against humanity.

Erik makes it a policy to speak as little as possible, even in seemingly mundane situations. It is his understanding that the menial guards have nicknamed him the 'Tin Man', and not solely because of his talent or much-missed helmet.  
As in, _'If I only had a heart.'_

 

By the time he's made six cuts on his right thigh, he realizes Charles will never come-- in spirit, or otherwise. The man Erik occasionally allowed himself to call _neshama_ \-- 'my soul'-- is shut of him. Xavier either despises him for the injury, or believes the carefully circulated rumor that Erik was behind the president's assassination.  
In all honesty, it's probably both.

 

Thus, Erik lives in a constant, painfully fluorescent world of white and gray. With the exception of a period spent confined in a dark, coffin-sized cement bunker (during which he loses his precious grip on time), there is never any escape from the antiseptic light. What few occurrences that could be called 'events' are sporadic, but definitely cyclical. Lehnsherr's current theory is that the person or persons charged with his incarceration are periodically replaced as they fail to extract useful information from him. A replacement then comes in, all pride and self-importance, and institutes a new program of torture they're just *sure* will have Erik spilling his secrets.

This latest one likes drugs. In a way, Erik wasn't prepared for it. There's been such a long period of general inactivity that the doctored meal came as something of a surprise. He most assuredly hasn't eaten anything since-- not that he could, even if he thought it was safe. Whatever they've given him came on slowly, so that he'd finished the entire tray before he'd realized there was anything wrong. It's potent, _definitely_ hallucinogenic, and almost certainly psychedelic. He's been vomiting on-and-off through three more offered meals, and has long since ceased to expel anything save stomach bile. In fact, there may have been a little blood in that last bout. And this, to paraphrase Banshee, is only the beginning of a _sincerely_ 'bad trip'. 

It's too strong to be LSD, at least based on Erik's experience. They tried dosing him with that early on, back when they'd still thought some sort of psychological intimidation lay in telling him what they were inflicting. It can't possibly be recreational, either; people derive their pleasure from many strange things, but he can't imagine anyone signing up for this. His prison jumpsuit is practically dripping with sweat and, while he's managed to keep from soiling himself, dragging his body to the minimal lavatory takes effort on par with lifting a submarine. 

As bad as it is, Erik isn't really concerned about tolerating the physical symptoms. For good or ill, he has spent most of his life enshrouded in a grim determination that would give even that death's head reaper pause. The psychological effects of the mystery poison, however, are potent in ways even his captors may not have anticipated. 

 

For Erik is not just enduring this torture, but _all_ of them. The horrors march before him in a stunning panorama of vibrance and texture. He is both observer and entrapped participant in these agonies. He watches Schmidt hold forth the coin and demand the boy move it; he hears the sick thud of his mother's body on the floor, and feels the warm flecks of blood that land on his cheek when he crushes the guards' skulls within their helmets. He remembers the look on his father's face that final day, when they were separated. Wide and somehow noble green eyes-- Erik had forgotten that-- above pale flesh and unkempt dark beard. How Mama had trembled, shaking as if her very bones where coming apart in misery. She had breathed in painful gasps and clutched Erik's shoulders, but she had not wanted Vater to see her cry.

He watches and feels as Frost slices into his mind on the _Caspertania_ , and is treated to Shaw/Schmidt's look of triumph in agonizing detail. So sick and humiliating, that moment of lost opportunity, when he had suddenly just been ' _kleiner_ Erik Lehnsherr' again, tasting chocolate and knowing the monster-maker would keep on winning.  
Forever. 

In real life-- back where he retains an odd awareness of present time and his spasming muscles-- he'd followed his quarry into the water, enraged and trying to crush the submarine like a tin can. The miracle (which Lehnsherr will _never_ concede, never give G-d or the Universe such credit) had been that Charles managed to find him in the dark tides. Had called Erik by name and told him he was not a freak, but a part of something more.

The drug doesn't let him have that. It won't give him the hushed and oddly intimate conversation under towels and dim lights in the hold or, indeed, any of the other countless warm and treasured moments Xavier bestowed upon him. It wants only the pain: the hated coats and their branding yellow, the choking blow-job he gave in Belarus in exchange for a lead. 

 

At this particular moment, he is lying face-down on the floor of his cell, cheek pressed against the cold concrete, reliving one of Shaw's fear-motivator experiments. The point is, it is _not_ a dream. The primary basis for this argument is that he's experiencing both situations simultaneously, right down to sensory input. His nerve-endings are in no way thrilled by this. It's taxing in a way Lehnsherr has never conceived of, making him yearn for the truncation of death. Also, Erik very rarely dreams at all. His nocturnal landscape is as blank and mute as slate wiped clean. While the body has to dream-- good, bad or indifferent-- he himself is a wary creature even in repose. The few nightmares he'd had on the road with Charles had, ironically enough, occurred because he actually trusted the young man enough  
_(been soothed by that blue-flame presence)_  
to let down his guard.

 

He will never be able to clearly pinpoint just when the dual sensations of hard cement and packed earth become hard cement and smooth wood floor. Gradually, he realizes he's no longer experiencing the lightless hovel Shaw once locked him in. The space around him feels inexplicably bigger, and the air no longer smells like frozen dirt and the feces of rats and humans. In fact, the air smells processed-- a faint no-odor underneath vague traces of mothballs and old potpourri. Still aware of his aching body and endlessly lighted cell, Erik realizes his alternate surroundings offer a bay of angled windows, in addition to wood floor and actual pieces of furniture. He can only see bare branches and a sparsely starred night beyond the panes because he is currently lying on said floor. Levering up on his palms (an act which has no affect on what now seems to be an entirely separate body still in his prison cell), he cranes his neck to take in a voluptuous if dusty sleigh bed, a pair of nightstands, wardrobe, and empty vanity. The room itself is illuminated only by the moon, and a faint strip of light underneath the closed door. 

Metal sings about him in its blessed, everyday profusion-- nails and buttons, hinges, radiator grills and plumbing. Keys, light-fixtures, the tungsten filament in bulbs and the tiny links of the pull-chains. The groan he releases is not unlike that of a starving man finally presented with a loaf of bread. He is ravenous for it, the feel of all these small and dear and elemental things; it is amazing, nigh-on transcendent. Collapsing, he stares almost sightlessly at the wall, just lying there as he savors the return of color and truth to the world.

Then, a quiet voice, soft and sweet like a woodwind, asks hesitantly, "Is someone there?"

 

Erik sits up a bit, which his stomach protests (though not as strongly as it might in the empirical world). Behind him, the wardrobe door has opened ever-so-slightly. 

"Yes," Erik says after a moment, "I'm here."

A rustling and shifting, then the angle of the opening increases minutely. Lehnsherr can feel eyes upon him in the gloom, but no response seems forthcoming.

"Will you come out?" he asks in a low tone.

A long pause. "No, please. It's not safe." The voice is undoubtably reed-like, vital and crisp along the British vowels. "Perhaps… you could come in?"

"I very much doubt I'd fit," Erik says reasonably enough. Still aware of his glaringly bright reality, he never the less adapts to events with the same aplomb that kept him alive during his hunting days. His body-- this version of it?-- is just as ravaged by the drug, and he crosses the short distance to the wardrobe in a sort of half-crawl, half-drag. 

 

The door on the far side opens obligingly, revealing a small, dark-haired young boy in a nest of piled furs. The child's breathing is strange, and one pajama-clad leg protrudes from the glossy folds at an odd angle. He's holding some sort of handset, using its greenish glow as a make-shift flashlight, but most of his own face is hidden in shadow. It doesn't matter-- one look in those blue eyes, and Erik knows without a single iota of doubt who it is. His cynicism calls his instinct nonsense; after all, that particular eye color is caused by the OCA2 gene, and is exhibited in 8% of the world's population. 

_(The odds, the odds… what, as they say, are the odds? Be careful, because we're playing for keeps.)_

In spite of absorbing many of the professor's off-handed lectures about genetic probability, he knows that gaze.

 

Erik has never once encountered eyes quite the same hue of peerless azure as those belonging to Charles Francis Xavier.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _shavar_ \-- Hebrew; break, destroy, smash, ect. Used over 200 times in the Tanakh, usually in reference to things that can _never_ be made whole again.  
>  - _shamyir_ \- hebrew. demon, devil (pronounced 'shaw-meer')
> 
> [+] The title for the series comes from Fall Out Boy's "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'.
> 
> [+] additional completely non-political note: in terms of historical accuracy, water-boarding was officially considered illegal by US Generals in the Vietnam era. However, more than one specific incident in which it _was_ used has filtered out over the years. Considering the fact they were pretty much abetting the dissection of their own soldiers/citizens, I doubt the CIA in DoFP would really have cared much for policy.


	2. A Visitor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The summary for this one has been updated to hopefully more accurately reflect what the fic is about-- sometimes, I suck at summaries. This fic isn't actually all solitary confinement and Erik-torture, I promise. Well, the first one, anyway. 
> 
> Dedicated to **Carly** and **valancysnaith** for continued awesome conversations and bouncy ideas, and to **mistral** and **avictoriangirl** for their support of this fic in particular.  <3
> 
> And, as always, enormous gratitude to anyone who takes the time to read this. If you have time to kudo or even comment, I will love you forever and possibly give you a lock of McAvoy's beautiful lost hair. ;_; Except that Erik took them all already. ;-)

"Perhaps…" murmurs the shadow which has hidden itself carefully in the depths of the wardrobe. "You could come in?"

 

The blue eyes currently regarding Erik Lehnsherr are wide, tear-filled, and set in an impossibly young face, but they are still inescapably Charles'.

This fact is reinforced moments later when the boy gently asks, "Are you hurt?"

"I've been better," Lehnsherr says. In fact, the physical portion of himself not presently enjoying this out-of-body experience feels much worse. He's dehydrated and hungry, though the mere though of food makes his stomach rebel in typhoon-sized waves. 

 

As ever, Charles draws Erik's laser-like focus with an uncanny power. Having levered himself up enough to sit propped against the other door, he suddenly realizes that the boy's visage is not as obscured by shadow as he'd thought. The impression of darkness is actually a huge bruise, blooming like a purpling debris field all along the left side of Charles' face. His cheek and jaw seem to have taken the worst of it, but Lehnsherr can now see a vibrant red blotch fading to puffy brown-pink around the eye. There's a large cut on his forehead, too-- digging into the delicate brow and very narrowly missing that same eye.

"A more pertinent question," Erik says, trying to calm himself, "is 'are _you_ hurt'?" His voice sounds alright, but his heart is wringing and clamping in his chest. Nothing makes sense and, though the real Charles would never believe it now, Erik hates to see his professor in pain.

_(Ah, but thin air carries more weight than your words, to say nothing of your actions. Indeed, what the hell could your promises mean to a man you left laying broken on a beach? Do you think a little tender pillow-talk and lovingly bandaged wounds from Russia can make up for that? Wouldn't wither in the face of betrayal, and be forgotten?  
How well a liar knows the sound of his own lies!)_

It shouldn't matter anyway, because this is all in his head. Doubtless it's some subconscious response to his own guilt, fueled and distorted by the CIA's shiny new mystery drug. 

 

"It'll be okay, I think," the boy-Charles says, frowning. "I don't z'actly feel better, but the pain's not so bad now. I just feel… weird and goopy." The childish speech pattern causes another twist in Erik's gut. Beneath the pile of furs, Charles shudders and winces. 

"You need to find help, Charles," the older man says, inwardly groaning at himself. He's never known how to handle children. They seem like such alien creatures-- some third species reported in a fantastic and highly suspect explorer's diary from the 19th Century. It doesn't take much, however, to know that inane statements of the obvious will be of no use to the boy.

"I can't," comes the little whisper. "He's maybe still out there." This Charles doesn't seem surprised that Erik knows his name. He simply stares at the adult mutant with a kind of creeping and nearly religious awe. "I'm going to die, aren't I? That's what you're here for."

"Why on earth would you think that?" Erik huffs, bemused.

"Cain watched a movie the other day, about this girl who was supposed to die in a car accident, only she didn't, and Death come looking for her because she'd messed up the plan." Young Charles says this with all the calm assurance the adult version uses when lecturing about nucleotides.

Having absolutely no idea how to address such statements, Erik settles for, "I am not the angel of death."

"Good." The release of breath ought to seem theatrical, but it's clear the child is very young, and full of belief. "That makes more sense. You seem like a nice person."

Oh, dear Xavier! Forever unable to see Erik for what he is: an adder warming itself against that unique and tender heart.

The boy pauses, studying the strange guest more closely, and then adds, "There may be some bandaids in the bathroom."

 

Frowning, Lehnsherr realizes he does have quite a few scrapes on his arms and feet. The perils of rolling about deliriously on a concrete floor, no doubt. 

"I think we're both a bit beyond bandaids now," Erik says ruefully. Peering around the wardrobe, he can see the darkened portal of an en-suite bathroom. He is incredibly thirsty, but uncertain if his stomach can handle water. Of course, in a drug-induced vision, what could it hurt?

The immediate area darkens a bit as the bright green screen on Charles' device goes out. The boy presses a button and, with the returning light, Erik can see that the it looks like a radio handset, or a boxy telephone without the cord and rotary. Following Erik's gaze, little Xavier shrugs sadly. 

"I almost called 9-11," he says significantly.

"Will that bring help?" It's a damnably short phone number, even for America. 

Blue eyes regard him as though he's a bit mad, which is irritating. Erik, after all, is not a delusion and has no wish to be judged by one. 

"Yes." Cautious, confused. "But if the police or ambulance," (he says this 'am-blance', he's so _young_ ) "show up here, Mr. Marko will be mad."

Ah, the stepfather. Proof that this is all in Lehnsherr's head, for he has yet to be presented with anything he doesn't already know. While he has been a bit envious (and sometimes cruel) about the plentiful physical comforts of Charles' childhood, he's never coveted Xavier his family.

 

"He says," young Charles continues, once again in that informative tone. "That if I ever tell anyone, they'll take me away from Mummy and send me to foster care, and take away all my books and things, and that the older boys will bugger me 'til I bleed like a girl." He starts rushing his words towards the end, spiting them out all in one breath, and Erik can see he is genuinely frightened. "Or he'll tell the doctors-- he says, 'head-shrinkers'-- that I sometimes hear voices, and they'll take me away to a hospital and 'lectrocute me until my brain really does shrink."

Without thinking about it, Erik reaches out, finding a tiny hand in the layers of make-shift blankets (he can see now that it's an extensive collection of ladies' fur coats and evening wraps), and squeezes gently. He'd begun to suspect, shortly before he'd drawn Shaw's fatal attention, that there was something different 

( _wrong_ ) 

about him. As a child, he'd had no context for the sharpening awareness of metal or its soul-deep kinship, and the only reference he could think of was 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' Consequently, his private terror had been that Mama wouldn't love him if she knew, and fear because the world at large was already persecuting him for existing. Looking back, he thinks that maybe some part of Mama did know. Probably every mother tells her son he's special, though.  
Or most of them, anyway.

 

"Where is your mother, Charles?" he asks. There are a number of tried and true violent forms of recompense he would have loved to visit on 'Mr. Marko', but he's sure he could spare a few for Sharon Xavier. To his mind, silence and inaction are consent. 

"Out with 'the girls'," Charles says, not a trace of reproach in his tone. "It's New Year's Eve."

Erik wishes he could believe that last bit, because it would be useful. He misses the concept and constraints of time, though he really doesn't want to think about how long he's been down in his concrete hole. Awareness of his true body and circumstances have been gradually decreasing, which at least provides a respite from the pain. He decides that, as long as this scenario exists, he will react within it. Moving into a crouch is blessedly easier, and he tugs gently at the small hand he still clasps. Little Xavier resists, however, shaking his head.

"Don't want to investigate the bathroom with me? I promise we won't go into the hall."

"I _can't_ ," the boy insists. He points to his leg, and Lehnsherr berates himself for not focusing in on it sooner. Charles has been sitting in a considerably unnatural position in order to keep it in straight flush with the bottom of the wardrobe. When he tugs his pajama leg up, Erik can see that the limb is very swollen. "It _really_ hurt getting here."

The adult mutant makes a grab for the handset, utterly offended at the sight of a small child-- a child who is _Charles_ \-- so battered. Again, for simply existing. From what little the real professor shared with him, Kurt Marko found the boy's intellect, uncanny insight and delicate looks offensive in the extreme. And he is a beautiful child-- despite the current marring-- in a manner of the most innocent artisanship. Like the idealized portraits of royal children or incumbent Dauphines. 

"Please don't make it worse," the little one begs, managing to hold the telephone away.

"Isn't there anyone who can help you?"

"The servants won't be back until morning."

 

Lehnsherr's only response to that is a snort of unvarnished disgust. Pulling open the other door, he traces down Charles' lower leg, trying to keep the searching touch gentle. The fractured tibia is easy to find; Xavier flinches, but doesn't cry out. It hasn't broken the skin, though Erik is sure the boy jarred it considerably getting into his hiding place. Looking around, he becomes fairly certain this is a guest room in the East Wing. That ninny McTaggart might have used it. 

"Your leg is broken, Charles," he says, watching his free hand unconsciously rise to stroke the child's hair. "I can help you--"

_(This time, this time-- oh, the dreams of a guilty conscience!)_

"--but it's going to hurt."

Charles sniffs loudly, but nods.

"I'm going to pick you up now," Lehnsherr says, and does just that-- furs and all. Cradling the boy with great care, he is bemused to realize those tiny fingers have looped themselves in the straps of his prison jumpsuit. 

"What's your name?" Charles asks, peering up at him.

"Erik," the man says simply. 

"Erik Lehnsherr." Tracing over the simple label on the prisoner's vest. That piping voice pronounces it 'Le'Henn'Share', as though it's French, but Erik doesn't bother with correction. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Charles Xavier." The greeting is delivered with perfect, reflexive charm. Luckily, Erik has only ever been one to laugh in derision and rarely in genuine pleasure, so he doesn't make a response that might hurt the boy's feelings. 

 

"How old are you, Charles?" he asks instead, depositing his burden gently on the dusty peach-draped bed. He props his charge up against the pillows, mindful of keeping the leg in question straight. 

Almost indignant, "I'm five and a half!"

"As old as all that?" Erik returns, archly amused. Charles is still wrapped in a relative mountain of stoles and capelets-- fox fur, white ermine, mink. Extravagant and pathetic; he looks some sort of beached mutant selkie. Underneath, the man can see bright blue pajamas with odd, capering frogs on them. 

"My tutor just let me start the second grade reader," the patient informs him importantly. Infuriating, arrogant little thing. And then, something this far-too trusting child should have asked much earlier. "How did you get here?"

"I'm not sure," Erik answers honestly, rolling up the pajama leg. "Since this is a dream of sorts, it doesn't really matter."

"But I'm not sleepy."

"Not your dream, dear," Lehnsherr murmurs, instantly more focused on getting a sense for any useful metal in the room. "This is a hallucination _I'm_ experiencing."

"If anyone is dreaming, it's me," the boy says with just the sort of implacable reason of his adult counterpart. As if mercy, brighter reality, or hope are obvious concepts and not treacherous sandpits waiting to give way. "I'm real, and I didn't just appear from nowhere in a funny gray suit."

 

Erik is not going to argue philosophical or sartorial choices with a five (and a half) year old. Unfortunately, the more pressing issue will be a less theoretical-- and far more painful-- task. With the briefest flex of metalokensis, Lehnsherr summons a belt-buckle and the length attached to it from a shelf in the wardrobe.

" _Wow_ ," Charles breathes, momentarily forgetting pain in favor of awe. "You did that? You're amazing! Do it again!"

"In a minute," Erik is relieved to find the belt itself is real leather. Folding it over, he holds it out towards the boy's mouth. "I need to you to bite down on this. I'm going to move the bone back into the right position, and it will hurt terribly, but once it's done you'll feel a bit better." 

Dubious regard from those blue eyes. Erik stares back, unblinking-- no one has ever accused him of having any bedside manner. Whatever Charles reads, or thinks he reads, in the strange visitor's face must be fairly convincing, for he does lean forward and take the belt between his teeth. There's no point in counting or asking if the boy is ready (why give him time to tense up?), so Erik just grasps the slim tibia in its sheath of skin and realigns it. His erstwhile patient cries out, vivid eyes temporarily rolling back as he bites into the leather and his own scream.

 

' _Pass out_ ', Lehnsherr thinks loudly, mostly because it would at least give this small version of his professor some relief from the pain. The change in form and setting does nothing to offset the sudden feeling of doubleness, as if the constant exposure to the light he can still sense from his prison exists simply because he's never left that G-d forsaken beach at all. In all honesty, it's less a recursive feeling than one of limitless potentiality. This strikes him with the force of a true physical blow, the palpable quality of these images. A kaleidoscopic pivot on which turn a thousand versions of Erik and Charles, wounding and wounded. Facets that portray every possible permutation of circumstance; conquered and conquerer, beloved worshiper and idol, trading roles as easily as they once exchanged kisses. It's a _thin_ feeling, as though one can hear the outer layers of the world being stripped away as a sound-- the thunderous engine of destruction itself--- gets progressively closer. 

Charles moans, spitting out the folded belt. Despite the fact pain has drained all pigment from his face, he is for a moment the sole thing possessed of any color in the room. Erik has the strange impression that his own mind has become a sort of screen upon which the boy is projecting; a tangle of impressions that are sharp and clear and-- despite the occasional flash of familiarity-- make absolutely no sense.

 

_('That's how it starts, Charles-- location, identification. It ends with being rounded up and experimented on…'_

_'Are you ready for this?'_

_'Let's find out.'_

_'I'm **never** crawling inside that head of yours again!'_

_'-- couldn't disobey you if I tried--'_

_'You must think me such a fool. You always said they would come after us.'_

_'Ah, yes, your continuing search for hope. I will bring you hope, old friend…'_

_'There are so few of us left, now.'_

_'All those years wasted, fighting each other…')_

 

"It hasn't happened yet," the boy says, riding the edge of consciousness to the point only the whites of his eyes can be seen. His head lolls alarmingly on the pillow, and Erik cradles that delicate skull with one hand even as he quickly summons more wire hangers from the wardrobe.

Dry, devoid of all feeling or inflection, Charles continues, "It hasn't happened, but it's unhappening. Everything is coming undone."

Charles' physical reaction almost looks like a seizure, the way his muscles are twitching, but Erik knows better. He holds the small form still as best he can, tapping young Xavier's cheek and thinking Charles' name as loudly possible. He's seen something like this only once before, in the early days of Cerebro-- and even that was just a pale shadow compared to this. After a few heartbeats during which centuries pass, Charles eyes flutter open and focus. A small rivulet of blood begins to leak from one nostril. It ought to be impossible to feel this degree of relief and concern at once, but that's exactly the sensation pounding through Erik's veins.

"Back with me?" he asks. His own voice is rough, as if he has also been screaming. Perhaps he has been. Charles' face is so small, so fragile between the assassin's hands; Erik tips his chin up, forcing gentleness over panic. This is nothing, this night and this room and this phantom boy, all just a wisp of drugged and guilt-ridden dream. But Charles has always been visceral, and Lehnsherr cannot keep himself from reacting honestly. 

_(Rarely right, rarely safe or kind, but honest. Oh, yeah, you're a real mensch.)_

"Don't be… mean to yourself," Xavier croaks. He turns his cheek into the man's rough palm, as trusting as that proverbial and heart-breaking lamb. "Everything is already loud, in my head." The trickle of blood rolls down his upper lip, swiped away by a reflexive tongue. 

 

"Here," Erik says, briefly using his shirt-cuff to staunch the bleeding as he reaches for the closest garment-ridden hanger. Silk or chiffon-- a woman's blouse?-- not the most absorbent but it rips easily enough. Handing over a small swatch, the metal-bender sets to work tearing longer strips. It means letting go of the boy, but Charles slumps against him, rubbing a cheek against the scratchy prison collar. By the time the blouse is in unrecognizable pieces, Lehnsherr's young companion has looped two skinny arms around the man's neck, lacing his fingers where the dark hair is shaved hygienically short. He flinches when Erik looks at him sharply, but this version of the professor stays close, ingrained anxiety warring with distant hope. 

G-d, he's so trusting. Once, in moon-strewn dark waters off the coast of Miami, Erik had looked at his unexpected savior and thought him painfully young. All that perfect diction, the shining intellect which glinted even in the most mundane of conversations, and yet he had the open face of a schoolboy whose heart had yet to be scathed. Later, of course, he'd learned that his new friend was quite the Oxford Lothario. It was all window-dressing, like the dowdy wardrobe, the constant down-play of his powers, and the perfect cocktail-party smiles. But even that Charles-- the Charles who _scoffed_ in surprised and honest offense when some CIA prig mentioned the color of Armando's skin-- had not been as vulnerable as all this. 

It's like holding a wounded bird, or a pup still damp from birthing. Lehnsherr might actually remember that-- a close, warm barn belonging to a neighbor and Mama's soft voice, 'Come here, _mossik_. Would you like to see?' 

Charles is trembling the same way, too. That slender body-- too skinny, but not so much as to be visible-- is going into shock from the broken bone and… whatever fit just overtook the already taxed form. Erik rubs the boy's pajama-clad back, pressing their foreheads together. 

 

"I'm scared," Xavier whispers. "Sometimes it feels like _everything_ is in my head. It's loud and, though everyone is alive and real, they all see things so differently it makes it hard to tell. Their bad feelings are sticky. Is _he_ right?" Those blue eyes shimmer with tears though, for now, only one escapes to trace a lonely path amongst those freckles. "Am I going mad?"

"No, darling," Erik says, scooping the little one close under a single arm, still careful not to disturb the injured leg. With a flick of his own otherworldly muscle, he dissolves the wire hangers down to simple lumps of metal, consolidating and then dividing them into two thick rods. In an echo of the past, he whispers, "You have your tricks, and I have mine."

"I almost thought I 'magined that, before." Charles seems torn between starring at Lehnsherr's face for verification and the unique demonstration of power itself.

"No, you didn't imagine it." Frowning, the older mutant wonders if the pseudo-seizure affected some part of the child's short-term memory. "I have a gift, too. Just like you."

"I like yours better." One small hand maintains its hold on the visitor, while the telepath uses the other to rub fruitlessly at his temples. With a wry smile, Erik turns his attention to ensuring that both rods are long enough to run from the boy's knee to just above his ankle. Placing them parallel to one another, he uses the strips of fabric to complete the makeshift splint. Having set his own bones before, he finds it is surprisingly easy to do it for someone else. 

"There," he says, punctuating the statement with an almost unconscious kiss into his patient's hair. Charles' forehead is clammy, and his breath is still too shallow. When Erik pulls back, the child clutches with a tenacity more suited to his adult counterpart. "I'm just going into the bathroom for a minute," Lehnsherr says reassuringly. He's surprised by how steady this version of his body feels, especially in direct and diametric comparison with the other. He is still completely aware of himself in his mercilessly lighted cell, of the throbbing abuse in each muscle. This doubling-- combined with the bizarre kaleidoscope just moments ago-- makes _both_ heads pound ferociously. He can only imagine how the young telepath must feel. Would feel, if this were not an illusion.

"You'll come back?" Xavier asks, relaxing his grip. He looks away, overcome with something that seems a lot like guilt, but which Erik far more logically interprets as embarrassment. 

"Of course," he says, striding quickly to the en-suite door. "I just want to see if you were right about the first aid kit."

 

Turning on the lights barely occurs to Erik, he's so grateful for the illusionary darkness. He can't help but chastise himself, either-- if this is some sort of hallucination then he can hardly gain anything within it, much less help someone who doesn't exist. Never the less, he strips a good length of stainless steel from the mirror frame while he takes in the rest of the room. It's not out of keeping with the mansion he remembers, though obviously disused. There's a washstand-style sink, a toilet, and a claw-foot bathtub with a hideously flouncy peach shower curtain to go with it. Forming the pilfered steel into the approximate shape of a knife-- and knowing he can add that fatal edge at a moment's notice-- Erik hides it in one of his canvas prison shoes. The chances of this having any effect in the real world are vanishingly small, but Erik has always been willing to exploit even the most unlikely of resources. 

Contingency plan in place, he helps himself to the medicine cabinet. Its stock is woeful. but it suits his needs. Ignoring the half-empty perfume bottle and nondescript comb, he finds the promised first aid kit, a bottle of Tylenol, and a small box of wax paper cups marked 'DIXIE'. His throat throbs in sympathetic longing, though he has gone far longer without water in the past. Sometimes it had been deliberately withheld, and other times it was so choked with waste that to drink it was to take your life in your hands. He has never quite stopped being aware of the luxury of running water, though he knows many people take it for granted. Too hot, too cold-- who cares? He turns on the tap now, filling one of the cheerfully patterned cups to the brim. The temptation to knock it back is amazing, but he forces himself to sip, and even then his stomach rebels predictably. He moans almost inaudibly in his cell, and it echoes; in the bathroom, he groans a bit more loudly and it echoes there, too.

 

"Erik?" Charles hisses from the bedroom. Lehnsherr can feel the boy's fear growing, condensing into a fine mist. 

_(alone… don't leave… was he even here at all?… really am crazy-- oh, god, don't go…)_

Quickly refilling the cup with water, as well as topping off an additional one, Erik moves back towards his companion. The metal tin with its red cross follows behind like a well-trained dog. When he sees the look of delight on Charles' face, Lehnsherr causes it to weave and twirl a bit on its course, for there is no one here to discover his indulgence. 

"I'm right here, Charles," he says, sitting beside the boy once more. He hands over a cup, cautioning Charles to go slowly, while he opens the medicine bottle. It has an odd plastic cap which doesn't really serve as an impediment, and he holds out two pills in his palm. Hard to tell how much good something from an over-the-counter druggist will do, but it's better than nothing. Charles takes them willingly enough, and they both finish their water with a solemnity that makes it seem more like ceremonial wine. 

 

"Can you move anything like that?" Xavier asks, enthusiasm just barely winning over exhaustion. "In your special way?"

"My 'special way' is magnetism," the older mutant says, frowning down into the medic's tin. As he'd told Charles, they're both a bit beyond bandaids, but he does dab at the boy's cuts with ointment. "So I can manipulate metal-- some types with more ease than others."

"What about magnetic fields?" Thoughtful, but also eager. He sounds so much like the real Charles that it pricks little talons of longing behind the great Magneto's heart. "Electromagnetism? Compasses, microwaves, radio waves, navigational equipment…" The last bit trails off into a chattering of teeth.

 

The boy is shivering, and his skin has turned the color of fine, unvarnished porcelain. After a heartbeat of thought, Erik climbs fully onto the bed, propping himself against the headboard. Gingerly, he moves the little telepath-cum-furball to sit against his own broad chest. Charles looks up at him from the large 'V' of the older mutant's legs, and Lehnsherr uses the opportunity to press two fingers against the carotid artery. Unsurprisingly, his new-- or old-- friend has a quick and fluttering pulse, bringing Erik powerfully back to the last real point of contact between them.

 

_(The shattered bullet looks, for a moment, like a glittering coin in the palm of his hand. Too small, of course, but the eye can do wonders for a guilty mind. There's blood caught in the warped surface-- it's still warm from the gun, and from the body it penetrated._  
\--failed, lost, everything in ashes and ruin again--  
Why couldn't it have been any of the others? A cruel thought, but Magneto-- Shaw's grotesque heir-- is quite clearly a cruel man. In his mind, there is an empty and already infected void.)

 

"Hurts--!" the youthful version of his victim gasps. "Where'd you go? I can't feel--"

It's just a broken bone, just a broken bone, but Erik gives the boy a shake anyway, unable to let him finish the sentence. In the next moment, he has his arms wrapped tightly around Charles, hunching over a little as he nuzzles into the dark auburn hair. Bodyheat, to combat the boy's shock-- all very logical, very motivated by practicality. Except that Xavier is weeping earnestly now, and the older mutant reminds himself that he is holding what amounts to a tiny emotional sponge. With each moment of Charles' mounting confusion and panic, the telepath is reflecting and retransmitting the swirl of darkness within his own mind. Mystique-- at the time, decidedly Raven-- once made an off-handed remark that Charles was sometimes most frightened by himself. In that moment, Lehnsherr had considered it some sort of internalized self-hatred. Only later did he realize that the professor-- his ivory-tower idealist-- was a ruthless cynic when it came to recognizing the potential dangers of his own psionic power. 

Pick me, and you bleed.

Despite the fairly prosaic nature of both the hallucination and his actual imprisonment, Erik has never felt less sane than he does right now. The consequences of his own wild fear were some of Schmidt's proudest experimental successes. 

 

_('I need the situation. The anger.'  
And the pain.)_

And what can Charles do, when he's hurt or frightened or finally roused to rage? He can _reach out_ \--

 

"I'm sorry!" Charles sobs. "I don't want to hurt anyone!" Then his expression goes blank, hollowed and uncharacteristically hopeless. "It's never going to stop, is it?"

"Be calm, _neshomeleh_ ," Erik murmurs, rocking them both a little as he tries to dispel the sense of his own hypocrisy. "You did a good job. You were brave." Not even he is certain which event he's referencing. He tries, in that counterproductive way that always comes with deliberate effort, to think of something else. The weeks and months of imprisonment-- grown numerous even before he lost track-- have blasted his senses numb with their sameness. Between the ebbing adrenaline and the jarring discomfort of Charles' earlier projection, it is becoming harder to focus past the dual sensory input. The sense of metal all around him competes with the void he knows to exist in truth. The room is both too bright and blessedly shadowed; he is starved even as he knows at last a friendly touch; he is still shelled out entirely even though he is blindingly aware of the… _presence_ he has so missed.

Or a version of it, at least. The adult Charles is always a much more vibrant mental companion but, though there isn't an ounce of telepathy in him, Erik has been primed to recognize that particular 'texture' of warmth. How small the boy is, for all his potential power! Not underfed by any means, but slender, with the deceptive delicacy of those whose bodies fight off illness after illness. The professor said he was often sick in his early years, as if his body had somehow been sapped of strength by the complexity of the psyche within. Erik was right before-- this Charles is like a songbird in held in both hands, all hollow and fluted bones. 

_'Brustband eisvogel,'_ he thinks, surprised, envisioning the creature's brilliantly blue-tipped wings. Erik's father adored birds, though it's something the metal-bender hasn't remembered in years. The image in his mind's eye-- an illustration from Vater's library?-- is astonishingly clear, but this wouldn't be the first time Charles has had that effect.

" _Alcedo atthis taprobana,"_ Xavier offers, Latin confident though somewhat unwieldily. A novice, but one brandishing scientific names while still mastering the finer points of English pronunciation. He's too old for his body, too smart for his own good. When Erik laughs in astonishment, his companion adds, "My father-- my real father-- had a painting of them in his study. _Vulpes zerda_ , too." The vowels of this last word are diluted further as Charles tries to hide a yawn. "Fennec foxes. I like them best, because they're teeny, tiny foxes that live in the Sahara, which isn't exactly where you'd expect them to be."

"Such a dedicated little scholar," Lehnsherr says, and strokes a finger against one soft cheek to show the compliment is genuine. Xavier flinches at the words, before relaxing with an effort. How his tone-deaf, willfully vapid family must hate him! And how Erik has always tried to protect him from the eventual endgame of such resentment-- to shield him from the violence Charles should have long ago learned to expect. His professor, advocate of 'better men', doomed to disappointment by the humans he championed. But that, as they say, is the nature of the beast-- especially when presented with such a unique prodigy. 

Charles' hand suddenly fists in Lehnsherr's dull prison-issue pants, and the older mutant looks down to make sure his charge isn't experiencing sudden pain. But Xavier is looking up at his strange houseguest with mingled shock and wonder. It takes Erik a moment to place that expression despite its familiarity,

( _'I thought I was alone.'_ )

and when he does, he curses his heart for its weakness in bruising once more.

"There is nothing wrong with you, Charles," he says, words deep and rough in his throat. You're not a monster, _schatz_. You're special."

 

Someone ought to tell this boy not to give his soul away with both hands! The cold, practical executioner in Lehnsherr can see how vulnerable this version of the professor is, how ready to welcome despite having been kicked quite a bit in his short life. Thank all thread-bare remains of decency that it was only Raven who reaped what he so eagerly offered. Stroking the boy's hair, Erik makes his hug enveloping, as if to hide this bright spark away.

He has no predilection for children-- in fact, he once meted out a particularly lengthy demise to an already despicable commandant who counted such amongst his numerous crimes. All the same, Erik cannot help but treasure this warm and detailed miniature of the only man he has ever truly called friend. These small hands, for instance, can only become the same scholarly and surprisingly strong ones that pulled Lehnsherr from the water.

A selfish thought, but… Oh, what the two of them could have accomplished, had only their paths crossed earlier. If he'd possessed the luxury of time to make a younger

( _more impressionable, almost worshipful_ )

Charles see. These are not the musings of a good man-- but Erik took the villain's helmet long ago, and thus cast off such pretense. 

 

"Will you take me with you, then?" the child asks, and Erik chastises himself even as he once more cringes at the limitless trust. How much has this telepath-- whose power is clearly unrefined and linked with distress-- heard? However much is too much. Xavier is looking up at him with desperate, almost awe-struck eyes. "Are there others like us? I always thought…" That blue gaze focuses past him, considering loneliness and the scope of the world. "I _hoped_ I wasn't the only one."

"You're not, _liebchen_ ," Erik says, grateful at least to be able to give this. "There are others, and I know you'll find them someday." Knows, of course, in the manner of self-fulfilling prophecy. This 'past' is only a backwards reflection, a trick of the light. Never the less, he swallows and tries to hurry on. He doesn't want to give the unpleasant words too much weight. "But I can't take you with me."

"Why not?" The confusion in that lovely, almost cherubic face is as clear as it is painful. 

"Because _I_ don't like the place I came from. Believe me when I say you wouldn't want to be trapped there." _'And because none of this is real; and even though it is not real, I still won't lie to you.'_

"Then we can go somewhere--"

 

Erik sees the instant Charles overhears the thought. (Far too coherent, damn it he _knows_ better.) The boy takes a deep, wet breath in as his shoulders tense. That little chin lifts, jaw clenching against tears. Bless this slip of thing, at least he knows well enough to deny others the satisfaction of his anguish. 

With sudden ferocity, he attempts to fling himself from Erik's lap. "Maybe you shouldn't worry about my feelings if I'm not real!"

Ah, and there's that fight! The tenacity that kept Erik's own Charles from rotting amidst the hollow wealth of his childhood, that pushed the telepath to define himself as more than some pampered prep-school heir. It's a strand of blazing steel in which Lehnsherr can clearly see the man who clocked him across the jaw on that hell-blasted beach. The professor who would wrestle with the only power holding back the fiery tide of missiles, because he put a collection of platitudes* and a g-ddamned ethical debate over obvious survival. The little boy of the present is stiff, radiating an almost palpable chill, especially resentful of the fact Lehnsherr needs to expend little effort in keeping the patient from jostling the broken bone. Charles may not be able to scramble away from the older man, but every inch of the small form communicates his disdain. Xavier always did have the amazing ability to run hot and cold at the same time.  
If you pushed him hard enough.

 

"I always care about your feelings, Charles," Erik admits gruffly. He says this not to the boy, but to the window beyond which the night is held still between jagged jaws of icicle. _'Even when what's at stake outweighs your feelings.'_ The ultimate dilemma, and even more insurmountable in real life. There are three little words that are harder to say, but this is right up there. He could think it, name this deep feeling and his apology that way but-- in the height of irony for a telepath-- neither incarnation of Charles would believe him unless he could say it aloud.

No answer from his companion, and Erik extends not one conciliatory touch. His own hands are fisted in the ridiculous pink duvet, as he wars with resentment and unaccustomed compassion. It is a novel desire, to shield someone from what _kleiner Lehnsherr_ has experienced instead of forcing them to look, to see and acknowledge. 

Finally, he does put one calm, meaningful hand on the boy's shoulder. "I won't let you pity yourself. You're better than that."

Xavier tries to curl his small form more tightly inward, but the metal-bender maintains his grip on the makeshift splints. He adds a hand on the ellipsis of hip, awkwardly gentling. Charles seems torn between looking fascinated and betrayed. The latter is not an emotion Lehnsherr is prepared to deal with, even in so small a version of the man he has already so grievously wronged. He strokes the soft auburn hair, more downy than silky with youth. 

"Pity never helped me," he continues truthfully, "and I promise it won't help you. What has it accomplished so far?"

For a moment, there is only mutinous silence. Then a sniffle and, "Nothing."

 

The hurt, while still present, is dissipating into an expression Erik is far more familiar with. A kinder version of scientific curiosity, without a trace of rapaciousness to dismantle in sight. How quickly Lehnsherr learned he could not maintain his long-standing grudge in the face of this critical difference. And how terrifying it was to realize he loved Xavier not in spite of his scientific leanings, but as a facet of the man entire. The professor's true dedication to renaissance and discovery was an essential part of that scholarly soul. _Primum non nocere_ \-- and Charles actually meant it. 

The boy does, too. It's clear he suspects something-- a wound or snag in the working's of this stranger-- and Erik can feel small, cautious tendrils of thought moving in much the same way a mother checks her tumbled child for scrapes. 

"Don't look, Charles," Lehnsherr can't help but snap. Even the monster himself will not dig in the salted earth of deep memory, not where the artifacts of Schmidt's regime lie. "I promise you, you'll regret it."

"You're hurting," Charles says softly, anger seemingly forgotten. The ferocity in Erik's expression doesn't appear to phase him, either.

"Everyone hurts," he replies in equally reasonable tones-- some facts are just facts. When he takes the child's hand, it is engulfed in his own. It practically disappears.

"I hear them," the telepath acknowledges heavily. The sigh that follows is half a yawn, and he hitches back towards Erik, seeking a niche in the prisoner's arms. 

"You hear Marko's thoughts, too." He doesn't need to look down to know the miniature professor is making a face.

"I don't _want_ to hear them." A trace of petulance returning to the tone, "I don't like them-- any of them." It occurs to the metal-bender that 'them' might mean more than just Marko. Charles pulls back a little, studying Lehnsherr's face before bringing a hand up to repeatedly test the texture of the man's shorn hair. "I like your thoughts. They're nice-- they smell like music, even though they sometimes taste sharp or sound cold." 

 

Erik is actually able to parse this last statement out with a bit more ease than most, for the true professor had often tried to explain the tangled input and synthesia telepathy provides. Like trying to describe fruit to someone who has never tasted it, or sun to a creature from the depths of the sea. 

One princely little hand is still touching Erik's hair, and the metal-bender realizes with no small amount of astonishment that he is, in fact, being petted. This Charles is too young to be capable of or understand a caress; instead, he is stroking his strange companion as one would a dog or some small stuffed toy. The action is uninhibited, utterly without guile. Again, Lehnsherr must doubt that he himself was ever a child. The capacity to love someone so undeserving is quite beyond him, to say nothing of endowing an inanimate object with sentiment. This mystery drug is remorseless, parading forth not only all his sins and pain, but inflicting also the vision of a Charles Erik has yet to shatter, looking at him with complete trust. As much as he is unequipped to handle this development, he cannot quite make himself pull away from young Xavier.

"You're not as helpless as he wants you to think," he says, staring over the slight shoulder. There is no mirror in the bedroom proper, and he is glad of it. 

"He hurts me," Charles says. "If I hit back, in my way… I can't control it!" Frustration, and perhaps the most easily misunderstood of fears-- that of oneself. Of course, the telepath would let himself be hurt before inflicting it on others. Every denizen of the true, empirical world should be profoundly grateful it was _Charles_ who was born with the powers of a demiurge. How to explain self-preservation: first, to a child, and second to a child who is also Charles Xavier?

"Use what you hear then." It doesn't take much to imagine the type of man Marko is, and such men can not more avoid vice and dishonor than a leopard can change its spots. 

"He'll hurt me more!" Yet the protest is less certain, almost questioning. Then, consideringly, "He has white powder in his study desk. It's not soda, like he says in his head. He closes door and his thoughts go funny, but not like they do when he drinks."

"Yes, _exactly_. Good boy," Lehnsherr praises. Then, unable to resist the moment of pedantry, "He may hate you, but he's also afraid of you. They're always afraid of anything different. But if its more useful to leave you alone, then he will-- once he realizes you can damage him, too." Even Erik understands that 'mutual assured destruction' is a bit much for a five year old.

 

Rather than reply, Charles once more drapes his arms about the older mutant's neck, hugging him so hard that every one of those miniature muscles tense. It's a strangely pleasant, solid feeling-- differing from even the most companionable of Xavier's embraces as an adult. Lehnsherr hugs him back, with much more care, thinking of the flutter of bird's wings; topaz and turquoise, orange and jade. The boy's next yawn is a full-body quake, and Erik gingerly slides them both down a little so Charles might rest his head against the pillows. 

"My leg still hurts," comes the whisper. Not a complaint, but a tremble of fear. 

"For now, the best thing is to sleep, _neshomeleh_." 

 

It will continue to hurt in the morning, but there will _be_ no morning-- not for this dear little ghost in Erik's thoughts. Already, he can feel the processes of his own mind slowing, a heavy pendulum losing momentum. His body-- both bodies-- are exhausted; he can clearly discern where the agonies align and where they jar discordantly. A part of Lehnsherr wants to stay awake, hold onto this mislaid blessing for as long as he can. Enjoy the darkness, the sound of Charles' breath already beginning to even, though those blue eyes still blink in rapid defiance of sleep. The most ordinary of metals, ores, and alloys hum their mundane tune, beautiful in the manner of a mother tongue after years in foreign lands. Hello brass, hello steel, hello nickel-plating and copper pipes and vanity full of costumed pewter jewelry. He nuzzles that auburn hair with his cheek, inhaling the faint lemon of shampoo beneath a sheen of shock-sweat. 

Charles finds the older mutant's hand, lacing their fingers together. Every line of his body shouts 'don't leave me', but he articulates the plea with neither thought or voice. 

"Just rest," Lehnsherr soothes, and the back of his neck begins to tingle pleasantly-- a sure sign of those psychic tendrils coming to rest along his own mental perceptions. Reaching out now, together: the sheet-metal, chassis and gears of Marko's ostentatious cars, the wrought iron gate at the end of the drive, the copper wires singing snug in their telephone lines. Fading, fading, with the invader called sleep, like a painting stripped color by color until the whole thing is subsumed by turpentine. 

 

Erik won't be surprised when he wakes back in his cell-- he won't. The hallucination is dissolving into the chaotic nonsense of dream, and his mind is far to organized not to recognize the gradations. As he crosses that divide, he hears the phantom sound of bird's wings, of their song in the heights of the dark forest. 

One such feathered creature lands before the child-Erik, where he stands in the emerald-dappled path with the rough outlines of his father's memory. 

"A homing pigeon," Vater says-- in English, which is very strange. The bird itself is an incarnation of sleep's illogic; completely see-through, every inch of feathers turned to glass. He can both see and feel the tiny shard of magnetite in its skull. With a clash of chimes that shatter the forest silence, the pigeon takes flight, crying out, wheeling and aimless. 

 

That dear, young Charles whispers to him one last time:

_'It's the magnetic fields. They get lost, poor things, they just circle…'_

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Meredith's Ridiculous Foot Notes and Glossary:**  
>  [+] _neshomeleh_ \- Yiddish; sweetheart, lit. 'little soul'.  
> [+] _mossik_ \- Yiddish; a mischievous little boy, an imp.  
> [+] _liebchen_ \- German; sweetheart, darling.  
> [+] _mensch_ \- Yiddish; a person with integrity and honor.  
> [+] _Brustband eisvogel_ \- aka the common kingfisher. A common European bird, it looks like [this](http://demando.net/commonkingfisher.jpg)).  
> [+] Fennec foxes look like [this](http://demando.net/fennec_pup.jpeg). *warning for extreme adorableness* ^_~  
> [+] _Primum non nocere_ \- Latin; 'first do no harm'. A tenant of medical ideology. 
> 
>  
> 
> *I love Charles, but seriously: 'they're men just following orders'? You might have been able to pick something worse to say, darling, but it would take effort. 
> 
>  
> 
> Timeline Clues:  
> \- 9-1-1 was introduced as the national emergency number in 1968.  
> \- Child safety caps were not required until 1970.  
> \- Cordless phones did not come into common use until the mid 1980's.


End file.
